wyardley wrote:
Well, in Mandarin, you can either say it with an 'sh' sound but with your tongue curled back to the top of your mouth, or you can just say it like most Chinese people I know, and use just a straight s sound. sh without the tongue curled back is 'x', not 'sh'. Southerners tend to transpose ch with c, zh with z, and sh with s. I say it the improper way, because I get made fun of by my wife if I say it "properly".

To my ears, it's usually closer to 'sway' than 'shwee', though some people will be more towards one or the other.

The tones are important also; shui is third tone, so start in the middle, go down, and then go up, and it will be drawn out a little more (time-wise) than if it were in second tone, for example. Xian is first tone, so it will be a high flat tone.

Stentor wrote:Thank you, Chip. I'm probably going to have some of Yamashita's gyokuro tomorrow (provided I find the time to sit down and enjoy it properly). I'm quite excited about it, never had such high grade gyokuro before.

Which one!!!???!!!

Takumi! I've only got 3 x 8 g of it, so there's not much room to experiment. Gonna start out with 4 g and 60 ml (2 oz).

edkrueger wrote:Yeah, the u is still there, but it is hard to hear as an English speaker. It took a long time but I think I can hear the difference. It sounds a bit like dea-su, but the a is very slight.

I think of the "u" as a stop. You need to stop your "s" abruptly instead of letting it hiss, and that's where the little "u" slips in. The slight release of sound as your "s" cuts off.

It's probably not the case with your teacher, but I've noticed that while there are times where my pronunciation is indeed wrong (in Korean and Japanese), there are also times where it's perfectly fine but "mis-pronounced" only due to my face. I live in Korea and sometimes Koreans see a foreigner and just assume that what they will say is badly pronounced and won't hear it any other way.

edkrueger wrote:Yeah, the u is still there, but it is hard to hear as an English speaker. It took a long time but I think I can hear the difference. It sounds a bit like dea-su, but the a is very slight.

I think of the "u" as a stop. You need to stop your "s" abruptly instead of letting it hiss, and that's where the little "u" slips in. The slight release of sound as your "s" cuts off.

This explanation is closer to what I'm familiar with. The same goes for all the -masu endings. It's definitely very subtle.

Other vowels get 'devoiced' as well, such as the 'i' in "deshita."

Some of these differences can be a dialect nuance. And sometimes they can also be a gender difference.

edkrueger wrote:Yeah, the u is still there, but it is hard to hear as an English speaker. It took a long time but I think I can hear the difference. It sounds a bit like dea-su, but the a is very slight.

I think of the "u" as a stop. You need to stop your "s" abruptly instead of letting it hiss, and that's where the little "u" slips in. The slight release of sound as your "s" cuts off.

This explanation is closer to what I'm familiar with. The same goes for all the -masu endings. It's definitely very subtle.

Other vowels get 'devoiced' as well, such as the 'i' in "deshita."

Some of these differences can be a dialect nuance. And sometimes they can also be a gender difference.

If the u in desu is almost silent, does the same thing happen to the u in kyusu, where there is also su at the end of the word?

Anyway now I'm reminded how much fun it is to say shiboridashi, shincha and fukamushi, but I'm still not sure how to pronounce gyokuro so I avoid saying that.